Derivation

In the literature, there seems to be three different ways of characterizing derivation, which mainly differ in their treatment of the process of compounding; one restricts the term derivation to the process of affixation, which is the stance assumed by Yule (2010:

58-59). The second, of Jackson and Amvela (2007: 82-87), includes stress placement

and conversion under derivation while excluding compounding, whereas the third, that of Katamba (2005: 54-72), also includes stress placement, conversion and

compounding.

In the present study, derivation is considered to be the creation of new lexical items by using morphemes and words already existing in the language, thus including stress placement, conversion, compounding and affixation, essentially agreeing with Katamba’s (2005:54) view. He makes a particularly convincing case for comparing inflection and derivation by stating that it “…highlights clearly the fact that essentially all word-formation boils down to one of two things: either the creation of lexical items, the province of derivation, or the creation of grammatical words, the province of inflection” (Katamba 2005: 56).

Derivation, like inflection, deals with certain word forms, which include stems and affixes, most of which are morphemes in their own right. The morpheme is the minimal, or the smallest possible, unit that can carry meaning, or serve a grammatical function in a language, thus including both actual words and parts of words (Jackson and Amvela 2007: 3, Katamba 2005: 29, Yule 2010: 67). Stems are some of those actual words, and are described by Jackson and Amvela (2007: 81) as carrying the basic meaning. They can consist of multiple morphemes or a single one, the latter being called a root or base (Jackson and Amvela 2007: 81). For example, unforgivable is a word that consists of four morphemes: un-, for-, give, and –able, of which give is the only one that can function on its own and thus constitutes the stem of the word, while un-, for-, and –able act as affixes in this instance, despite some having a similar written form with a word of different meaning. It is impossible to break give into smaller parts, also making it a root morpheme. Un- modifies the word by giving it a negative

meaning, for- carries the meaning of declining to (in an abstract sense) give, while –able is an affix that changes the word into an adjective. In function, both roots and stems may be either free, meaning that they can occur alone, or bound, in which case they cannot (Jackson and Amvela 2007: 81). Affixes, by contrast, are always bound since they are used for adding meaning to the stem (ibid.); they do not carry any meaning by themselves.

Affixes can be divided into inflectional affixes, which are used to modify the

grammatical form of the word as discussed above, and derivational affixes, which are

used to create new word forms. Both types of affixes can, in the English language, be appended to either before (im- + polite = impolite) or after (polite + -ness = politeness) the root, in which cases they are called prefixes and suffixes, respectively (Katamba 2005: 52). Also present in many languages other than English is infix, which is

appended inside the word (Yule 2010: 59). Notably, these are very common in Finnish, such as in kävelisimme and roiskuttaa. Yule (ibid.) does note, however, that even in colloquial English certain swear words can be used in the manner of infixes, an example of which would be absogoddamnlutely.

Jackson and Amvela (2007: 86-87) discuss derivational affixes, of which there are more than sixty common different ones in the English language, by pointing out their low functional load, i.e. that they are limited to certain very specific combinations with particular stems, and as such are applicable to individual stems, rather than sets of words. Jackson and Amvela (ibid.) also note that even though derivational affixes may be occasionally distinguishable from inflectional affixes, there are close orthographical parallels as well, such as the suffix –ed being both a past participle and a derivational suffix used to form adjectives. As noted in the section discussing inflection, inflectional affixes cannot change the class of the stem, whereas derivational ones can, yet do not always do so. For example, consider how both consider and reconsider are still verbs (ibid.). Another important difference between inflectional and derivational affixes is in that while inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes, derivational affixes are spread more evenly between prefixes and suffixes (Katamba 2005: 58-63). For a more thorough listing and exploration of the various derivational affixes and protocols involving their use in the English language, see Katamba 2005: 57-64. One last thing to note about inflection and derivation is that while treated separately and frequently contrasted in the present study and the sources, they are not mutually exclusive as pointed out by

Katamba (2005: 63); a word can contain both derivational and inflectional morphemes.

Not all derivational affixes are equally productive; some are more commonly used than others, and may have many more stems to which they are commonly attached (Katamba 2005: 100-104). Consider Katamba’s (ibid.) example –ly, which changes adjectives to adverbs, such as quiet – quietly; this suffix can be attached to nearly any eligible root, as long as appropriate spelling modifications are made. Compare it with, again an example used by Katamba (ibid.), -ery, as in slavery or bravery, and the difference becomes clear. Whereas -ery has fallen out of common use as the English language has evolved,

yet still occurs as part of words such as these two, -ly is applicable to a great deal of adjectives in contemporary English. While these two examples illustrate the difference between a productive affix and an unproductive one, it must also be remembered that there exists a continuum of affixes that are productive to a varying degree between these extremes. (ibid.)

Another, rather different, kind of affix is, arguably, the stress on a word. Jackson and Amvela (2007: 87) note that a word consisting of two or more syllables may change its word class without changing its actual form in any other way than its stress pattern;

thus, they regard stress as a derivational affix. Katamba (2005: 66) adds that there is also a clear pattern to how this happens: “Stress falls on the first syllable if the word surfaces as a noun and on the second syllable if it surfaces as a verb”. This is evident in all of Jackson and Amvela’s (2007: 87) examples as well, some of which are: ^contract – con^tract, ^defect – de^fect and ^present – pre^sent (the ^ symbol is used here to indicate that the syllable following it is stressed). In some of these examples, some phonological changes also occur in vowel sounds, which is something that Katamba (2005: 66) also notes. Thus, the placement of stress on a word can be used in a manner not entirely unlike derivational affixes.

Compounding involves creation of new lexical items by combining two actual words instead of affixes; the end result of doing so is called a compound word. Jackson and Amvela (2007: 92) elaborate that compounds are actually stems that consist of more than one root, i.e. they form words of their own, but consist of other words that

themselves carry core meanings, are treated orthographically in an inconsistent manner (bedside vs. car-wash), and may involve inflection of one of the roots, as is the case in their example of bird’s eye [view]. Katamba (2005: 67-68) adds to this by pointing out another interesting quality of compounds; they have a head. This means that, usually, the latter part of the compound is syntactically dominant, i.e. its syntactic qualities are passed on to the whole compound, while the syntactically subservient part specifies a characteristic of the head, as is apparent in Katamba’s example easychair, which is a noun as defined by the head chair, while easy describes the chair. Some compounds, such as black market, may at first glance appear similar to phrases, but can be

distinguished as compounds as elaborated on by Jackson and Amvela (2007: 93-94) by certain phonological, syntactic and semantic features. Phonological features include stress pattern and lack of juncture (black market= ^black^market i.e. a shop painted

black vs. black market=^blackmarket), while semantic features include specialized meanings such as a dustbin being actually used to collect things other than dust and a blackboard being actually a green plastic board. Syntactic features particular to

compounds are their specialized uses of certain uncommon word orders as well as their constituents’ inability to become individually separated, inflected, or modified. (ibid.)

Another, very common yet relatively simple method of derivation used in the English language is what Katamba (2005: 64) calls zero derivation, while others seem to prefer the term conversion, which is the creation of lexical items by changing the word class of the word form without any actual alterations, even in stress patterns. Katamba (2005:

65) presents an excellent example of conversion in practice, by demonstrating the word jump:

a. The pig will jump over the stile!

b. What a jump!

In this adapted example, jump in the a. sentence is a verb, while in the b. sentence it is used as a noun. In a sense, a new lexical item is derived from another without actually doing anything.

To recap, derivation in the English language, as considered in the present study, is in agreement with Katamba’s (2005: 54) view. It involves the affixation of bound forms either before or after free forms, using stress placement as an affix in its own right, compounding free and/or bound forms together to form new words, and/or simply forcing the lexical items to behave according to new syntactic rules, which is called conversion.